


A Softer Answer

by sophiagratia



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: F/F, Femslash, Queer Youth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-09
Updated: 2012-06-09
Packaged: 2017-11-07 08:26:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/428948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sophiagratia/pseuds/sophiagratia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i> The first time, their first time, Janet asks her if she’s never been with another woman, and then if she’s never even wanted to be with another woman. ‘No,’ Sam says, and then, ‘I don’t know.’ Which isn’t, strictly, true.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Softer Answer

The first time, their first time, Janet asks her if she’s never been with another woman, and then if she’s never even wanted to be with another woman. ‘No,’ Sam says, and then, ‘I don’t know.’

Which isn’t, strictly, true.

She lies awake, the new burn of Janet’s lips and Janet’s hands alive all over her skin, and thinks, no, that isn’t strictly true.

*

There was Sally Carmichael, for example. 

When other girls were giving each other makeovers or collaging pages of Teen Beat, or whatever it was other girls did, Sam Carter was playing dress-up with Sally Carmichael. Well, Sally was playing dress-up, and Sam was hovering, wondering how to hold herself and where to look – or not look. 

Sally Carmichael, who had the kind of way with trouble that made trouble seem shy, who forced from Sam’s lips those unaccustomed lies to her father about school projects and study dates (and even then, Jacob Carter had a habit of knowing glances, and Sam wonders, now, how much he knew, then). Sally Carmichael who made Sam feel every minute of the two years’ distance between them, Sally Carmichael who never gave Sam a choice about much of anything.

With her mischievous, lip-biting grin – one finger laid conspiratorially over the bitten lip – Sally had taken Sam by the hand and led her into her older brother’s bedroom. Carey Carmichael was a hero to Sam, whom he’d taught to shoot tin cans out in the woods at the edge of the base, whom he’d drive anywhere in his old Camaro at a moment’s notice. Carey with his sharp good looks, his antiquated debonaire manners. 

‘Debonaire’ was a word Sam’s mom had used in a way that made Sam fairly sure it meant anything to do with the height of masculinity. When she died and left little but her children behind, Sam picked up these words of hers like mementos. ‘Debonaire.’ ‘Suave.’ (Sam knows better, now, what her mother would have said, then, and those words have a hurt that they didn’t, when she was a kid.)

Now Carey was out with a girl – ‘Or so he says,’ Sally said with a wink that Sam didn’t really want to think about – and Sally was leading her into his room. Sam’s heart pounded at just the thought of this treason, this trespass into Carey’s own private space. 

‘We shouldn’t –’ she’d started, but Sally had just rolled her eyes and tugged Sam’s hand, which only made Sam more nervous.

And now Sally was standing in front of Carey’s full-length mirror – the only one in the house – and pulling over her hips the trousers of his dress uniform. The long line of her spine, the pallor of her skin, seemed to contradict the navy wool, with its perfect creases, the peculiar easy fit of its waistband on her high hips. Sam hovered, wondering where to look.

‘Sammy,’ Sally said, casting a glance at her in the mirror, ‘catch.’ A casual toss over her shoulder, and Sam found herself holding a neatly rolled length of compression bandage. ‘Help me out, here, wouldya?’ Sam looked up. Sally’s bra was dropping to the floor. Sam looked at the bandage, then back at Sally. Sally, who just never gave her a choice. ‘C’mere, kid, what, you think I’m gonna bite?’ Sam blushed. 

‘Quit calling me kid,’ she muttered. A rote statement by this stage, but what else was she supposed to say? Sally lifted her arms and waited. ‘Okay. How do I...?’ 

‘Just wrap. Tight. Like a knee, only with tits instead.’ Sally grinned, her eyes flashing a dare at Sam. There was no helping her raging blush, but Sam met her eyes in the mirror with a wry scowl. She wrapped, tight, trying not to touch Sally’s skin, and pretended that her hands weren’t shaking. 

She finished her quick, awkward work, and backed off. Now she knew where not to look, which was anywhere near Sally. 

She scrutinized the row of physics textbooks on the shelf next to Carey’s bed, ran a still-trembling finger along their spines.

‘Hey,’ Sally called, after a while, and there was something different in her voice. Sam turned, and what she saw was Carey Carmichael – with a difference. And the difference made her blush. Sally grinned, and tipped Carey’s hat.

Sam caught herself reflected behind Sally – her prim ponytail, her ill-fitting sundress, her blush. Everything about it felt wrong. She mustered her strength. 

‘Hey, flyboy,’ she said, trying for coy. But it didn’t sound like a joke, though Sally laughed. So suave, Sam thought, so debonaire, as Sally danced Sam around the cramped patch of Carey’s floor. Sam, awkward and lanky, stumbled. They crashed into his bureau, and Sally released her, laughing.

‘Whaddaya think, Sammy?’ Sally drew herself into a perfect salute. Sam swallowed. 

‘I think – I think you look amazing. Uh, sir.’ Sally grinned, which less marred than amplified the effect of her practiced military posture. Her sharp jaw, her strong hands, the angular lines of her in her brother’s uniform. ‘And, um, permission to speak freely, Lieutenant? But I think Carey might be home soon, and –’ 

‘Oh, shut up,’ Sally said, but the finger she laid across Sam’s lips was soft. Still, she moved to unbutton Carey's perfectly pressed shirt, and Sam made the hasty excuse of phoning her father to get out of the room. She curled up on a chair at the Carmichaels’ kitchen table, taking one deep breath after another, until she’d calmed down, a little.

Sally came down, glowing, and they talked about school and their brothers and ate ice pops like nothing had happened. And nothing had, not really, Sam told herself, thumbing the cold blue stain from her lips.

The sun was setting, and Sam was straddling her bike, one foot on the pedal, ready to speed off, when Sally kissed her. Just once, a chaste peck on the lips. Sally grinned and said, ‘Seeya, kid,’ and trotted inside. 

Sam’s eyes stung and her cheeks burned and she pressed all her weight into one pedal, then the other, and rode hard and fast to keep from crying like a kid.

Not long after that afternoon in Carey’s bedroom, that occasion that Sam could never name and never thought of without getting just a little queasy, Major Carmichael was reassigned and the family moved across the country. Sam and Sally lost touch, until they found each other again at the Academy, where Sally was going by Sal and could be found often as not drinking and smoking and laughing with a knot of raucus guys, the kind who courted demerits and tended to wash out and then laugh about it. Sam would run into Sal at the oddest times, and Sal would flash her a grin and a wink in the mess, Sal would smack her ass in the locker room, Sal would blow her careless, cruel kisses from a cockpit or across the drill yard. 

A kind of hope flared for Sam, that first year at the Academy. Because she thought it would bring her closer to Sal, she tried to learn a devil-may-care grin and how to hold her liquor and match the boys cuss for cuss. She could best most of them in an arm-wrestle, but farther than that she never got. She failed to be Sal, and then their friendship, such as it was, failed, too. 

It was that failure, maybe, that made Jonas Hanson the easy choice, Jonas who was comfortable until he wasn’t, who was safe before he was dangerous. Sal recoiled like a shotgun when Sam first showed up at a formal on Jonas’s arm, and after that they didn’t speak much, not really, not unless they had to.

Years passed, and eventually, Captain Sarah Carmichael, decorated veteran of the Gulf, was dishonorably discharged under circumstances that no one would discuss. The day Sam learned that was the day Sam called off her engagement to dangerous Jonas Hanson. It seemed like a coincidence for the longest time. 

*

She still feels a little queasy.

If she ever figures out how to put it into language, Sam will tell Janet about Sally Carmichael, about Carey’s uniform and the way her hands trembled, wrapping that bandage around Sally Carmichael’s ribs. About how Sally Carmichael wasn’t the only one, but how all the others always seem to slip and fade and coalesce into the figure of Sally Carmichael, of Sal the raucus cadet, of the former Captain Carmichael who, last Sam heard, is now living in San Francisco and going to law school.

She’ll tell Janet, too, how different Janet is from Sally, from Sal, from Captain Carmichael, and from all those others. Someday, when she figures out how to put it into language.

For now, she rolls over and watches Janet sleeping. She traces with her eyes the line of Janet’s shoulderblade, memorizing it. She thinks of Sal’s dishonorable discharge, and she is almost tempted to pray. She kisses Janet’s shoulder. ‘Thank you,’ she whispers. She’ll say it again when Janet wakes. 

She curls herself against Janet’s body, and lies awake for a long time, listening to her new lover’s breathing, and thinking that if this isn’t the easy choice, it is, for now, at least the right one.

*

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the Indigo Girls' song 'Strange Fire.' 
> 
> Thanks to kathryne, implicated2, killer_quean, and K.


End file.
